Director Derek Cianfrance talked to Hollywood Outbreakabout the upcoming DVD/Blu-ray release of his critically acclaimed film Blue Valentine. The full Q&A session with Cianfrance will be posted over this weekend, but here is information on his next movie, The Place Beyond The Pines, which reunites him with Blue Valentine actor Ryan Gosling. In the film, Gosling plays a motorcycle stunt rider who tries his best to be a father, but as the following conversation suggests, the rider’s life takes a wrong turn.

Hollywood Outbreak: During the 12 years it took to make Blue Valentine, you obviously matured as a person and as a filmmaker. Is your next film, The Place Beyond The Pines, a continued exploration of human relationships?

“Yes. I believe it’s the job of the artist and the filmmaker to go deep inside themselves and confront things that are inside them. Four years ago, right before my son Cody was born, I had been reading a lot of Jack London books and I had been really fixated on this idea of ancestry and the idea of Darwinism and the choices that generations make before you, how those affect your life. I wanted to make a film about generations, about ancestry, about the things that hang over us. About our nature, which we can’t escape. This will also complete a family trilogy that I tried to do with Brothers Tied, Blue Valentine, and now The Place Beyond The Pines. Brothers Tiedis about brothers, Blue Valentine is about husbands and wives, and The Place Beyond the Pines is about fathers and sons. So yes I’m very much interested in familial relationships because I think that’s where you really get to know people. I think there is no hiding in a family. I think you know everyone’s secrets in a family. I think you can get as intimate with someone as possible in a family even if you don’t get along. You know that person. And that’s what The Place Beyond the Pines is about. It’s another deeply personal film, but we’re going to have motorcycles and guns in it.”

Hollywood Outbreak: You spent years talking with Michelle Williamsand Ryan Gosling about Blue Valentineto help give the movie an authentic feel. Have you done the same with Gosling for your new film?

“I’ve been talking to Ryan for three years about it. Funny thing is, his character reverts to a life of crime in the movie and I was having dinner with Ryan one night before I had even brought up the idea of Pines. We were talking about Blue Valentine years ago, and Ryan told me that if he ever robbed a bank, he would do it this certain way. I said ‘Oh my God, that’s exactly how the character in The Place Beyond The Pines chooses to do it.’ That’s how it’s always been with me and Ryan. We’re like on the page of things like that, you know? Just like Ryan and Michelle (Williams) were co-writers on Blue Valentine, I consider Ryan to be a co-writer on The Place Beyond The Pines. And also the other writers I’m securing for it. That’s exactly what I expect out of them too. To collaborate on it with me. That’s why I’m a filmmaker and not a painter. If I was a painter, I’d sit in a room and I’d have all of the ideas. I’d just be a megalomaniac and create my own world. But I’m a filmmaker because I love people, and I love to try and bring out the best in people. Like a coach.”

Blue Valentine comes out on Blu-ray and DVD on May 10th. Click on the media bar and listen to Cianfrance discuss the “dueling opposites” nature of Blue Valentine.